Don’t Go Off Mad. When you are nurturing relationships with adult children (yours, steps, in-laws, or exes), grandchildren, and all the other characters who play a role on your family’s stage, it’s a good idea to think about your habits. A thoughtful review may reveal a few statements better left unsaid, actions better left undone. […]

Dinosaur Stories with Ayden and Cadence. September 2008. As I write this week, I am thinking of one friend and heart-sister who is in the midst of moving far from one family of grandchildren, yet close to another. These changes claw at our grandparents’ hearts. Yet when it comes to grandparenting across the miles, creativity […]

Cadence, Daphne, and Sawyer, “Playing” the Piano. April 2014. Last week we looked into being good guests when visiting the kids and grandkids. A friend suggested I write about hosting the kids and grandkids, which seemed like a splendid idea to me. Some ideas: Figure out where they’ll stay. If your son tells you that he […]

Sawyer, Rob, Cadence, Daphne, Elaine, Me, Rich. Charleston. September 4, 2016. At the beginning of this month, we were privileged to be the houseguests of daughter Elaine and her husband, Rob. I cherish this privilege because I know that having houseguests for ten days is no small thing, no matter how much love flows between […]

Crater Lake. June 2014. Have you ever heard that old saying, If you have too many irons in the fire, you might smother the flames? Me neither, to tell you the truth. I think I just made it up. But it has the vapid air of a platitude, doesn’t it? It feels true, all the same. I […]

Meet Sheila

Sheila Seiler Lagrand, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. As an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, she studied anthropology and literature with an emphasis in writing. But her dad would tell you that she's been writing since she was big enough to hold a pencil.
Sheila has contributed to several edited volumes. Her Christmas story, Kathi Macias' 12 Days of Christmas: Volume 8: Yankee Doodle Christmas, released in December of 2013. In October of 2014, her serialized novel, Remembering for Ruth, based on the characters of Yankee Doodle Christmas, released. Sheila also worked on a collaborative romance novel, The San Francisco Wedding Planner, just for fun. Her essay, "Strip Tease" appears in Soul Bare, edited by Cara Sexton and releasing in fall, 2016 from InterVarsity Press. Currently she is working on a book about family relationships across multiple generations.